In some environments, electrical connectors must be disconnected and reconnected frequently by field personnel in relatively uncontrolled situations. One example is in the field of computers and similar equipment. Such electrical connectors should be designed to minimize the possibility of damage from any misalignment of the terminals that may occur. Usually, where repeated disconnections and reconnections are anticipated, the terminals of such connectors are designed to have relatively low insertion forces, again to prevent damage to the terminals due to the frequent disconnect and reconnect usage.
One of the most common configurations of terminals for use with electrical connectors of the character described above is the configuration of terminal studs or pins which are inserted into hollow terminal cylinders or sockets. One of the problems with pin and socket terminal configurations is that there really is no defined points of contact and the terminals begin to loosen in such repeated disconnect/reconnect environments. In addition, when such terminal configurations are used in apparatus which require a considerable number of terminal connections of different sizes, it can be understood that tooling costs and inventory management involve a factor of two because of the different structures of the mating terminals.
In order to solve the problems described above with conventional pin and socket terminal configurations, hermaphroditic terminals have been designed such that two identical terminals and/or their housings are mateable with one another. Hermaphroditically constructed terminals and housings substantially reduce tooling costs and factory inventory. In addition, many hermaphroditic terminals can be designed with positive points of contact versus the telescoping contact configuration of a pin in a hollow socket. However, in designing hermaphroditic terminals, there is a tendency to design the terminals with rather complicated configurations. This particularly is true when it is desirable to design the contact with a plurality of positively engageable points of contact between the two identical terminals. This invention is directed to providing a hermaphroditic terminal which is extremely simple to manufacture and which provides up to four or six elongated points of positive contact between the terminals.